The online gaming platform Tabletop Simulator has become a gathering point for Age of Sigmar players scattered around the world. And for Narrative Play in particular, it can be a haven to attract critical mass to finally launch that Path to Glory campaign you always wanted, and teach new players.
Narrative Event Organizer (NEO) Brandon Harvey did just that, and he has shared his wisdom with us.
The pandemic years changed the ways we interact with the hobby, and in some cases opened opportunities to bring people together that otherwise would not be able to play against each other.
The use of online play, especially via Tabletop Simulator (TTS), has allowed players to play games with fellow hobbyists from afar and has even broadened the access to the game, by bypassing the need to meet face to face. Especially when a player has few people around them with whom to play.
This is particularly important when it comes to gamers who are looking for like-minded Narrative Players, which often can be hard to find and/or convince casual/tournament players to commit to a campaign.
Thankfully, in the recent edition, the Path to Glory rules framework has helped standardize a way to play narrative games in a long term way. With everyone sharing a common rules language to refer to, when doing narrative games, it has become more fair and easier to adopt.
On top of this, the ability to use it by simply playing pick up games and developing an army roster means that any game can count for Path to Glory.
Putting these to together, players around the world have started to use the online play framework to organize narrative campaigns using Path to Glory. This has exposed the system to more people and helped popularize it, even when its use is dwarfed by pick-up matched play battles.
One great example of this have been the Path to Glory campaigns run on the highly popular AoSCoach discord server, by Brandon Harvey (@Thaddeus03), a few years ago.
We had a chat with Brandon, to ask how the experience was, and how people interested in setting up their own campaign can also get started with as little effort as possible.
Q: Please summarize for us the framework of the campaign, and how it integrated the Path to Glory rules.
A: The Rusted Wastes campaign was fundamentally built upon the foundation of GW’s Path to Glory (PTG) rules offers, with a pack similar to a Matched Play GHB intended to tailor the game experience and make it feel more like a unique setting. Fortunately, Path to Glory as it currently stands needs very little additional framework to get a solid campaign going.
Q: How was the players’ reception to the campaign? How on board were they into starting Path to Glory?
A: There was a lot of excitement on the server about a Path to Glory campaign, especially since the new ruleset had just been released. It gave players an opportunity to create some really wacky narratives, since they weren’t limited to physical models. We gathered up to 25 players in our last run.
Q: How was the learning curve in integrating Tabletop Simulator? Not only did you have to ensure players could figure it out, but you also had to make sure you had mastery over it so you could answer questions, right?
A: Absolutely, and while TTS is a great tool, it does have a bit of a learning curve. Luckily, the community on AOS Coach discord is really intentional about providing learning opportunities, and since the Path to Glory games started at a low points level, players had more time to skill up since the games were smaller.
Q: We noticed you used a number of special rules as part of your custom battlepack, to simulate the environments of Chamon and reward the winners of each chapter of the story. How was adoption of that by players?
A: There was a lot of excitement, but it was really easy for players to forget the new rules. Luckily, we had a bit of a TTS wizard in the league who created in-game rules pages using the PDFs I had published.
I think PTG is the perfect opportunity to try out unique things like this, since players are already inclined to want to do some more narrative (and possibly less balanced overall) things.
Brandon also set up periodic “Narrative Events”, in which players attending those battles would be able to unlock new items and bonuses by playing and interacting with the story.
Q: What were the things you felt worked best, and what were the most difficult to execute or control for?
A: The online google sheet we used to track everyone’s armies was a big help to getting players engaged in the campaign. When you are playing on a real tabletop, its easier to engage with your league’s narrative because you can wander table to table during the scheduled games. Online, games occur more organically as people are available, so having this central tool was critical.
On the other side of that point, it is very difficult to keep players engaged with this type of campaign unless they are driven themselves. Any TO signing up for something like this should have a plan to keep the global narrative driven and interesting, to combat player disengagement.
Brandon’s players did really embrace the story, and dug deep into the narrative and posted storytelling-type summaries of their battles, on one of the discord channels set up just for that. The NEO giving bonuses to players doing that is always a good motivator.
Q: What would you like to say to players out there, to motivate them to run their own campaigns and avoid pitfalls?
A: One of the most underutilized resources in the AOS world is the narrative. There is a really rich story out there that allows for creativity to shine, and PTG gives an interactive way to do that. It is also a great way to meet people you would never have the chance to otherwise: we had players sign up from literally around the world.
If you do want to run one, make sure you commit the time and energy your players deserve. If you do, it will be an incredibly rewarding experience!
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Thank you, Brandon!
We hope more players and aspiring NEOs have the push they need to get out there and start questing on their Path to Glory.
With every narrative book that comes out, there is always some PtG supplement in there, and White Dwarf has plenty of PtG compatible mini(and not so mini) campaigns. Each is a great opportunity to kick off a new campaign/league at your local club, or gather a group of people online from all over the world to participate!
You can find the Campaign Rules documents here for more details.
Rusted Wastes PtG Main Supplement-Prologue – Dawn Breaks
Rusted Wastes PtG 1 – Fate Stirs
Rusted Wastes PtG 2 – Where the withered flower blooms
Rusted Wastes PtG 3 – Reckless
What do you think about this campaign?
Do you have any questions for the NEO, and how to get your own group, or total strangers across the internet, to start your own campaign?
Leave your comments below!
Narrative Event Organizer Network 